I didn't catch the men's skating, but I did see a short interview with Lysacek. He was articulate, diplomatic and gracious - he'll be a good spokesman for his sport whether or not its really a sport.As to the sour grapes, those of a certain age and up can remember all these various judged competitions where the Warsaw Pact judges voted en bloc.

My wife is much more of a connoisseur of figure skating than I, and she is certain that Plushenko was totally outskated by Lysacek. Good Lord! Plushenko bobbled executing a relatively simple move. In another year he'd have gotten away with it, but not when Lysacek had no bobbles at all.

This whole "controversy" is being plumped up by the MSM because modern reporters revel in controversy and will make it up as they go along if they have to.

Today's scoring system for figure skating is very objective, and the conditions of contest are very well defined. If Plushenko couldn't choreograph a program to optimize his point total then he has no one to blame but himself and his coach. Blaming Lysacek for having a higher scoring program isn't merely sour grapes, it's an admission that Plushenko isn't particularly knowledgeable about his own sport.

I'll tell you this, as someone who spent a decent amount of time playing ice hockey and skating in general, these are amazing athletes. The things they do on ice, and the seeming ease of it all, are remarkable.

Many of us can go to a golf course and hit a decent 8 iron into the green, or go to a park and throw a football with some accuracy. Try putting on a pair of skates, and let someone throw you into the air, spin around twice with artistic form, and land backwards on one skate, while moving immediately into the next move.

Yes, Lysacek was excellent in that interview. If they scored interviews, he could get the gold.

Plushenko is really inviting us to get specific and brutal about what was worse about his routine. For one thing, he did a whole lot of goofy dancing and wiggling in the second half of the routine, as if he thought, I didn't the quad so suck it, everybody.

The new scoring -- and the rules apply to everyone -- gives extra credit for jumps done a the end of the program, and he didn't have any.

but he is right about one thing -- they judges scoring was a bit off. It was a shock to me that his scores were so high ! technically, his jumps were off balance, slanted in the air, his landings were wobbly, and many near spills. His spins were slow and labored, and ugly and short in duration. His foot work-- not clean or intricate. And artistically, he was stunningly unimpressive.

Not a huge fan of ice skating, but the wife is and so I end up watching it. Plushenko represents everything wrong with the sport--men and women huffing and puffing in between a bunch of jumps, half of which just look silly. Lysacek, however, represented a true change from that--he skated a cohesive, dramatic and skilled piece ALL the way through. Frankly, I don't think Plushenko even deserved a medal and got one because ice skating judging is the most corrupt sports judging in the world, following only by gymnastics (and for largely the same reasons. [Don't believe me; watch the number of falls by the Russian couple the other day and ask how they scored so high.])